Top 5 Best Lesbian Movies

by B Condon 10:31 PM

After making my shitlist of the Top 5 Worst Lesbian Films Ever  I received so many comments via facebook of why I wouldn't make a top 5 best lesbian films, because for me the best lesbian films are not of that genre specifically but any movie that encompasses a character of the Sapphic fold. Which explains why I had to choose on this list "Pandora's Box," "The Hours," and "The Haunting" for having the most relateable lesbian characters. But as for the general "Lesbian" genre, I have a few that won't make me vomit with uneasiness.

5. 

Raus Aus Amal

(Show Me Love)

"Show Me Love" or sometimes known as "Fucking Amal" shows the mundane high school life in Amal, Sweden where nothing really goes on except soul searching, to find life's meaning as a teenager. To say that it's just another "girl going through the angst of realizing she's falling in love with a GIRL!" *le gasp* would be too easy but after watching the beauty of Alexandra Dahlstrom (who plays Elin) many times one can see two teenagers just trying to get through everyday. 

Case in point is a particular scene with Rebecka Liljeberg (who plays the "butch" but not really Agnes) with her father who consoles her that high school isn't all that great. "When our class met, I think it was our 25-year reunion, when they found out that I'd done well for myself. Bengt, who was then the class king, he didn't become anything. And the girls who were considered the prettiest, they weren't special any longer. So I think you'll be glad that you don't have it so easily. Because those who have it easy often become quite uninteresting." Agnes retorts back with "But you're speaking in about 25 years. I'm sorry, but I'd rather be happy now than in 25 years" which makes this girl meets girl and eventually falls in love with girl plot line a little less grating and ten times more relateable. Plus, Swedish girls and their language are effing gorgeous!

4.

Salmonberries

Beautiful, heavy, poignant, and haunting are the best words to describe this little-known film from the 90s starring country singer (and a very full-frontal naked) k.d. Lang and "Aimee and Jaguar's" German actress Rosi Zech have a lustful connection that could rival Jack and Ennis from "Brokeback Mountain." Yet the androgyny seems to be more of a topic than the lesbianism.

Or at least it is all one-sided as Lang (as orphan Kotzbue) struggles to find her biological family once landing in a small town in Alaska and befriending Zech's role as German Librarian expatriate Roswitha. Roswitha helps Kotzbue find her heritage as Kotzbue helps in turn, going all the way to East Germany with her to make peace with her dead husband at his grave. 

The  vast and empty Alaskan backdrop gives the movie a heavy and sad ambiance but there is a beauty behind it and it has nothing to do with the fact that k.d. Lang is naked for a quick second (maybe...) or the heartbreaking scene towards the end that I will not give away that is kind of beautiful in its sadness. Or the fact that k.d. Lang is naked for a quick second...

3. 

Pandora's Box

Georg Wilhelm Pabst's masterpiece of post-expressionism is not only an ode to  German Expressionist but also one of the first Lesbian characters in film -- and not contextually. For the few scenes Alice Roberts's role as Countess Anna Geschwetiz one of the many people who falls for the iconic Louise Brooks's luminous Lulu. The dance between the two women is oddly sensual for its time, especially with Roberts's yearning looks. As Brooks recounts in the special features, Pabst had to personally direct each look for Alice did not know how to "play a lesbian." But it is a wonderful homage to the Weimar woman open with sexuality, equaling up to the Goddess of Marlene Dietrich.

2. 

But I'm a Cheerleader

A little John Waters-esque in the colors and campiness there's something a little more than the atypical "Lesbian genre" plot of girl meets opposite girl, finds out she's lesbian (involuntarily), and falls in love with opposite girl. So whats the redeeming factor for my own "film elitist" mind (I say jokingly) in But I'm a Cheerleader? The cinematography, the music and the satire and humor. 

Funny how a movie that is all about sexuality doesn't even have one situational moment of sex in it except for a beautiful montage of a makeout between the mind-blowingly beautiful Clea DuVall's Graham and Natasha Lyonne's Megan. With the shadow backdrop to the tune of Tattle Tale's "Glass Vase Cello Case."

It's kitschy in the details, and Jamie Babbit being one of my favorite directors, has a habit of making movies with a meticulous eye for every shot and that is apparent also in the make-out scene as well as the night scenes in the use of shadows which continues six years later in "The Quiet" another fantastic movie with a slight lesbian allusion. But for now, let's dwell on the majesty of the twee-inspired soundtrack.

1. 

Madchen in Uniform (1931)

I sang its praises in the Top 5 Worst list, but Christa Winsloe's original school-girl memoir, "Das Mädchen Manuela," turned into play "Gestern und heute (Yesterday and Today)" was more explicitly lesbian than "Madchen in Uniform" which she was screen writer for. But what was filtered only helped with a classic 30s tension in the chemistry of Dorothea Wieck's Frau von Bernberg and Hertha Thiele's Manuela as well as the aesthetic team between Winsloe and director Leontine Sagan. While the film seemed more anti-fascist (thanks to Winsloe's involvement with the SPD) unfortunately this film isn't as widespread as its '58 or the adaptation of "Loving Annabelle" because of the Nazi's torching many reels available in Germany, but thankfully it was already widespread around the globe. Yet, the video quality is poor considering the film strip quality vs. the subtitles. But for it's deterioration and quiet tension, it's much better than most films of a consequential sexuality between women in film. And the kiss is hot.

Honorable mentions: Tipping the Velvet, Gray Matters, The Hours, The Haunting, Fire, Better than Chocolate, Aimee and Jaguar, The Quiet